Stacey30

You know you're an OR nurse if... ...you open your child's package of string cheese and let them pull it out as if it's suture. ...your hands are spotted with Dermabond to cover little cuts and painful hang-nails. ...students/observers wrinkle their ...

OR nursing isn't normally taught in nursing school because they want you to learn the basic skills necessary to become a nurse. Sometimes students get to follow their patient down to the OR if they happened to have a procedure scheduled during their ...

I work at a level 1 pediatric hospital OR (first nursing job out of school) and I love it. jdsmom pretty much covered the jist of the procedures we see except we also have opthalmology in my OR so we do lots of eye exams under anesthesia, eye muscle ...

I can understand why you may feel this way, because as a new OR nurse you do run your *** off at first. But pay attention to the experienced OR nurses around you and you should see that they're not running around nearly as much as you are. This is be...

I'm a new OR nurse on orientation and I'm learning to scrub and circulate (1 week scrubbing and 3 weeks circulating through each service). We are taught to scrub so that we can do so on days when techs are shorthanded, or in case we need to give lunc...

If this is your first RN job in the hospital then it's unlikely that they'll let you do weekends only at first, as you lack the critical thinking skills necessary for the job. Traumas are most likely to occur on off-shifts, so it can be difficult for...

We do this as well. We document lot #'s in the event of a recall.

I have the 14th edition and this is what the Preface says: "The fourteenth edition of Alexander's Care of the Patient in Surgery has been updated to reflect new concepts in perioperative nursing practice and increased sophistication and complexity of...

Sure do, I interviewed twice for the OR position that I applied for (which I got, by the way!) and both times I was asked this question! So I used two different examples. Example 1: I completed my preceptorship on a GI/Gynie surgical oncology unit an...

Oh yeah, hoods too :) also a lot of our attendings have accents so you have to get used to that as well!

I had to buy Alexander's Care of the Patient in Surgery as part of my Periop 101 class. I have not yet picked up the pocket guide yet but plan on it. Right now my biggest challenge is trying to develop my "OR ear." There's a lot of white noise in the...

Congrats! I'm 3 weeks into an OR fellowship program (it's basically Periop 101) and am loving it. There is SO much to learn though! Get yourself some spiral-bound note cards so that you can take notes as you go (especially since surgeons might like t...

Hello all! I graduated in May '12 and got my license in July, but I was pregnant at the time so I waited to look for jobs until after I had my baby. I applied for an L&D position 6 weeks ago and I'm so excited to have been called for an interview...

I just began an OR nurse fellowship program for UPMC in Pittsburgh. It's 5 weeks long and takes you through Periop 101 and counts toward your 6 months of orientation. I have both new grads (must be licensed already) as well as seasoned RNs in my clas...

First of all, I'm thankful to even have this as a dilemma since it's so hard for new grads to even find a job, let alone a specialty. I recently interviewed for two awesome specialties. One was for an OR fellowship for new grads (totally awesome oppo...

You both made some good points. I had orientation today and I explained my situation to the HR lady. She said it wouldn't be an issue if I get offered L&D and accept it since obviously it's a permanent position whereas the fellowship is considere...

This is dependent upon where you live as well as experience. I'm in southwestern PA and in the hospital system in which I just got hired all grad nurses start at $22/hr no matter what specialty you're in.

No offense, but if you don't want to do the work, don't pursue nursing. Period. I completed an ADN program and I had to write a group concept analysis that was 35 pages long and comprised 20% of our grade in the class. We hated it, but we busted our ...

Have you checked with your parents to see if they kept your childhood vaccination record? When I started nursing school I had to either provide documentation of my childhood immunizations or get titers done to prove immunity. Since the titers showed ...

Do hospitals in your area offer fellowship programs? I just interviewed for an OR nurse fellowship on Monday, it's for new grads who have passed the nclex. Since OR isn't typically offered as a clinical rotation in nursing school (at least not in my ...

Hey, congrats! My interview was yesterday and it was difficult but I think I did pretty well. They want me to come back and shadow this coming Tuesday, which I am told by fellow RN's that that's a sign they're interested in me (fingers crossed!). I'l...

I just interviewed for an OR nurse fellowship on Monday and I was asked the critical thinking question. I'm so glad I saw this thread last week because I was prepared with a good answer. I was also asked many of the interview questions from the "comm...

Thanks ladies, that's great advice! @ punkeydoodles- I did see your post about what to ask the interview and I wrote some of those questions down already :) I interviewed yesterday for the OR nurse fellowship (different hospital as l&d interview ...